At Holy Name Primary School, Prep teacher, Michelle Chester, embeds structured oral language instruction throughout her literacy program, which is central to all learning across the day. Michelle also provides opportunities for children to participate in unstructured speaking and listening episodes to apply and practice what they have learned. Frequent mini chats with a partner are common and provide Michelle with opportunities to make …
Oral language teaching opportunities are abundant in the classroom.
Education should develop children’s capacities to become effective communicators, to understand the ideas of others and to communicate ideas in a meaningful way. Developing proficiency across speaking, listening, reading and writing is central to every child’s educational journey and begins with a child’s earliest school experiences.
All children arrive at Prep with different experiences and understandings about language …
‘The Daily Chat’ – A book of weekly homework tasks for Prep & Kindy.
The Daily Chat is the latest publication by Literacy Solutions to support busy teachers. The Daily Chat is a 48 page publication containing nightly conversation prompts to promote and encourage oral language at home.
Frequent conversations support children to become effective communicators. The prompts in this book are designed to engage children …
As a Rotarian, I have become aware of a wonderful initiative that is making it possible for disadvantaged children to be exposed to good quality literature. It is called ‘The Kids’ Book Club’. This initiative is responsible for children under eight years old receiving a good quality picture book each month.
We all know how important it is for children to be exposed to good quality …
I was fortunate enough to be working with some amazing educators and students at Jamboree Heights State School last term. I began by delivering demonstration Guided Reading lessons to all year levels. Many of the teachers then volunteered to teach a Guided Reading lesson, giving me the privilege of coaching them. Whilst these teachers did not believe they had all the answers, they enjoyed an open culture where …
When I began teaching in NSW primary schools many years ago, teacher aides were almost non-existent. Now they are an integral part of most classrooms.
The big question is how can teacher aides best support the learners in any given classroom?
We need to address this issue by way of asking a question… If choosing between the teacher and the teacher aide, who spends the majority of …
Take advantage of more difficult texts in English and across the curriculum. We know that frequent, short bursts of explicit instruction produce powerful outcomes. We also know that students’ literacy skills and knowledge underpin the synthesis of new content across other key learning areas. Add to this, that the bulk of the texts students will be required to read, respond to and craft in secondary …
Aiden and his older brother, Jack, sit together to eat. Aiden lifts his banana, it slides from his fingers and drops to the concrete. Jack quickly comments, “Better eat that now; don’t save it for later.”
“Why?” asks Aiden.
“The bruise will make it go brown and squishy. Then it won’t be as good to eat.”
“How do you know?” enquires Aiden.
“I’ve dropped apples before. Trust me.”
Why does …
The classroom literacy program, sometimes referred to as the Literacy Block enables teachers to timetable for explicit teaching across reading, writing, speaking and listening, accompanied by differentiated learning, the independent application of skills and knowledge and a time to reflect or share.
In reading, approaches commonly used for explicit instruction include modelled reading and shared reading. These lessons may run for 15-20 minutes, with mini-lessons …
A literacy block should provide a balanced program of literacy instruction including the following teaching/learning approaches to support reading and writing.
Essential Reading Components:
Modelled Reading
occurs when an expert reader reads a difficult text to less experienced readers, enabling the experienced reader to model how effective readers sound, solve and think about texts when reading
The “think aloud” strategy is used strategically by the expert reader to model …